k_cheng

After seeing quite a few posts about downgrading on BA, I had a look whether there were any seats left for my upcoming flight to Tokyo (BA7) on 8th May. (Travelling with my partner) It seems there is only one available seat left now (unless the two bassinet seats are still blocked).. We booked the flight using the Lloyds upgrade voucher. The availability now makes me extremely worried knowing that BA specially targets to downgrade Avios bookings using vouchers. To make the situation worse, I don't have any status. Should I be worried that we are likely to be downgraded?

BA0197

While CW (and F) does look sold out (not selling any more seats), there are plenty of non-assigned seats still in the cabin. Because of something called Theoretical Seating (there is a thread about it), there is only one seat showing as open, when in reality there are 19 seats not assigned, but blocked, all in the middle section of the aircraft (at the moment I'm looking at it on ExpertFlyer).

I would be sure to check-in online at the T-24hour mark though, just to be on the safe side. Looks as though, IMHO, some lucky people may be getting bumped up from WT+ to CW.

k_cheng

BA0197

This should better help illustrate what I'm speaking about.

BA 7 0 LHR
08/05/18 11:40 HND
09/05/18 7:10 777
Daily
84% / 15m F0 A0 J0 C0 D0 R0 I0 W9 E6 T0 Y9 B9 H9 K9 M7 L4 V1 S0 N9 Q0 O9 G4

k_cheng

Ah I see. Thank you very much for explaining it in detail!

corporate-wage-slave

I can see where you're coming from but I wouldn't worry about this too much.

Which cabin are you travelling? And do you have allocated seating? First is certainly full and they aren't taking any more bookings. There won't be any upgrades from CW to First unless someone cancels. CW is probably not full but will be at the time of departure, WTP and WT have spaces. Broadly speaking, the fear of downgrades is greater than the reality, and I'm not sure where this line of thinking goes - would you, for instance, cancel the trip if it happened? In reality downgrades are rare, some days no-one in the BA network gets downgraded at all, and yet dozens of people miss their flights by oversleeping in the lounge or leaving their passport at home (etc). On the other hand BA is pretty good at filling its aircraft, and the usual way is to oversell WT and WTP and roll forwards, rather than vice versa.

This is not the case, but has certainly passed into folklore somewhat. The basis of downgrades follows a very different logic, which you will find in other threads in this forum, to do with available seats, where status becomes an implied factor. Those without status and without allocated seats are at risk, which from time to time does mean redemptions get hit, but a GGL booking a last minute full fare to HND would be at greater risk than you, all other things being equal, which they never are.

k_cheng

It makes a lot of sense now because the blocked seats were all shown as available this morning and suddenly they all disappeared...

BA0197

Yes, this is a feature of Theoretical Seating (https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/brit...ts-status.html). At T-72 hours to departure, FLY (the system BA uses to operate its' flights), blocks remaining seats and a set of rules come into play on which seats FLY opens up for your booking. More details in the thread above.

highpeaklad

Remember to online check in as soon as you can, pick the best seats if you have s choice but do not print/email etc your boarding pass. You can then keep checking back and as other seats open up due to changed plans/misconnects you can swap to something better. If you print your boarding pass you can’t change your seats.

k_cheng

Thanks for the link! It's actually an interesting system but a bit weird that only one seat is not blocked for the most invaluable customer though 2 passengers are in the booking. It's not like I'm going to pay for the seats anyway, so I always check in sharp at T-24 haha

Ancient Observer

BA's seating arrangements are a bit like an English only speaker listenning to a Hindi person speaking Ancient Greek with a harsh Japanese accent.